The present disclosure relates to query processing. In particular, it relates to identifying suggested completions of search queries.
Information retrieval systems, such as Internet search engines, are responsive to a user's query to retrieve information about accessible resources such as Web pages, images, text documents and multimedia content. A search engine may use a variety of statistical measures to determine the relevance of the resources to the user's query.
For a variety of reasons, a user can have difficulty formulating a query that accurately represents the user's information need. To assist the user in formulating an efficient search, a search engine may suggest queries to the user. Some search engines provide suggested query completions to the user as the user is typing a query, essentially completing the query by typing ahead for the user. However, in instances in which the user's query includes terms which are ambiguous or uncommon, the search engine may not provide meaningful suggested query completions to the user.
It is desirable to provide improved techniques for identifying meaningful suggested query completions that are likely to assist the user in completing a query.